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Saturday, May 16, 2009

If you ask me, this is the best place from which to view Key West's famous sunsets, though even of a sunny afternoon it's a pretty pleasant spot to hang out for a while:

La Concha hotel guests have access any time with their room keys in the hotel elevator, but the elevator will take anyone, even without a key, to The Top after 3:00pm. The bar opens at 5:00pm and you can watch the world go by in style, if you don't mind drinking your wine from a plastic cup:

I usually drink red wine but tradition has it that suicides who choose to leap from The Top are found to have left behind a glass of Chardonnay. If you don't believe me take the Ghost Tour which leaves from La Concha's lobby at 8:00pm, they will tell you the unvarnished truth. I took myself up to the The Top, and there took a moment by myself, on graduation day last week, so it seemed churlish to spoil the evening by taking a swan dive. I drank the wine and admired the view, including St Paul's Cathedral spire and Fleming Key:

A trawler chugging through the harbor en route to the Gulf via the Northwest Channel:

A tourist with Mule Key in the background:

The harbor:

As you can tell Key West is pretty much surrounded by boats at anchor which are most likely lived aboard:

One soon to be occupied by the fish is the Vandenberg:

There's Duval Street driving straight for the Gulf:

And here are some visitors touring the town on scooters, at Duval and Eaton, with a delivery scooter in pursuit:

A less energetic visitor enjoying a book on one of the terraces inside the building:

My colleague Noel described this as the coolest apartment in Key West, and as it's on top of the Kress Building I speculated Jimmy Buffett may have kept it for himself (he shares ownership of the building with Fast Buck Freddie's owner): I wasn't alone in enjoying the views from the top:

I decided to walk back down to the ground floor, but once you decide to take the stairs management makes sure you know there is no going back:

Until you are back in the lobby, pausing a moment:

Before you step out into the heat, noise and confusion that is downtown Key West.

Key West Diary

An archive of more than 4600 photo essays about Keys living since June 2007. My thanks to all those who have made up the 2 million views received by this page over the years.
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